man this thing is a PITA to install. Not difficult, but pretty much a beast in time and size. I'm in the process of migrating users from 2010 to 2012 (some 64-bit behind that) and removing old (migrate is a mess), install new, add SP, Object Extension, copy all special company stuff like fonts and what not, then having to get into new user profile and tweak and create plot files, it just insane.

Anyone out there have any tools to make this less painful? Last company I worked with just had 2 users who self-maintained. Here I have 20-25. Is there anything out there that you use?

We used Autodesk here at the school, using same as you 2012, upgrade every year, the best way we found was to install on one machine and than make a image and deploy. Works great. Use Acronis Snap Deploy. Haven't had any problems. Only bugs since using is not able to print 11x17 to some HP printers.

Not sure if you can achieve so much automation with Autodesk products in such details. My last interaction was with AutoCAD 2004 and it was not so nice even for 1 user to have it properly configured from the first time. I can say that I understand what are your concerns.

The only way I've made it even remotely easier is with SCCM 2007. I'm not sure what you do to customize it, but I'm fairly certain you can batch it and then have the batch run after a successful installation.

Example: Create one of the customization's with all the files and just xcopy it to the correct folders from a share or something to make it simpler?

Shawn? LOL Well that would be me too. They are a good bunch and I have a uber CAD guy for heavy lifting that assists users in using special commands and whatnot. At least I was given best practice and steps to perform the install. This takes now between 2-3 hours, even on fast machines.

Biggest pain is that some customizations goes in the Programs directory and some goes into User Profile.

We used Autodesk here at the school, using same as you 2012, upgrade every year, the best way we found was to install on one machine and than make a image and deploy. Works great. Use Acronis Snap Deploy. Haven't had any problems. Only bugs since using is not able to print 11x17 to some HP printers.

We have the same issue here with SolidWorks. I'd say each new install is 2 hours, each service pack up to 1 hour. The SolidWorks Update Manager does make it easier but I used to do manual installs to save redownloading every time. Now I don't care...

Next go-around I'm going to do a network install, then all the other systems get pointed to that. I'm not sold on it, but it's worth a shot.

We used Autodesk here at the school, using same as you 2012, upgrade every year, the best way we found was to install on one machine and than make a image and deploy. Works great. Use Acronis Snap Deploy. Haven't had any problems. Only bugs since using is not able to print 11x17 to some HP printers.

we are currently playing with that, but i wanted to wait and see how it worked before i said anything, good to know it works well LOL

I honestly don't think it is currently a decent candidate. When I say beast, I mean beast. My new boxes have pro video cards, tons of RAM, etc. Plus AutoCAD is really picky IMO. Would be awesome though.

Edit: Oops, was thinking of something else out. This is the provisioning thing right?

Love me some Acronis !! Sure had made things easy when you dealing with over 800 machines. With Autodesk, deployed to 30 machines in less than 3 hours, that is finished with everything and ready for the user.

We used Autodesk here at the school, using same as you 2012, upgrade every year, the best way we found was to install on one machine and than make a image and deploy. Works great. Use Acronis Snap Deploy. Haven't had any problems. Only bugs since using is not able to print 11x17 to some HP printers.

That is interesting. I will look into this. Even though I have a few new boxes to deploy, most of the upgrades will be to existing ones. I'd love to have an image server to deploy. We are not really that large...just have a few complicated pieces of software.

I honestly don't think it is currently a decent candidate. When I say beast, I mean beast. My new boxes have pro video cards, tons of RAM, etc. Plus AutoCAD is really picky IMO. Would be awesome though.

Edit: Oops, was thinking of something else out. This is the provisioning thing right?

I know what you mean, we have High powered Dells with Xeon processors and everything here too....I'm not meaning virtualize it on a server but rather package it all together so you can basically copy that wherever you need and BAM it runs....

Here we have batch files to copy the files to the correct locations, .reg files to set some extra settings (with a vbs ran against the .reg file if we need to change the username) and that sorts it out. We have nearly 200 Autodesk licences from LT to Revit.

Here we have batch files to copy the files to the correct locations, .reg files to set some extra settings (with a vbs ran against the .reg file if we need to change the username) and that sorts it out. We have nearly 200 Autodesk licences from LT to Revit.

At one company I worked with we installed and upgraded software via a product from New Boundary Technologies called Prism Deploy. This software deployment tool tool a snapshot of the computer prior to any changes, you then uninstall, install, set configurations and restart as necessary, then take the second snapshot. The Deploy tool creates a software install of the difference then with either a push or pull mechism to makes the changes to the target system. MS Office took less than 5 minutes. You might have to take 2 steps one uninstall and the other a install. but you basicly spend the time once and then 20 workstations can be done remotely and very quickly. It the best software deployment tool I have ever seen or used.

Hey guys! First, thanks for all the great ideas and comments. With all the things I'm juggling (new CAD stations, building VM Server, rolling ERP), it is going to take awhile to look at some of these solutions. Maybe a month or so. I don't want to keep the thread open with no BA or HPs. Can you all vote on the ideas and I will award based on their spiciness? Does that make sense?

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